Page 35 of The Glass Dolphin

“Julia doesn’t move fast,” Maddy said. “For anyone who doesn’t know. She likes to examine things for a while. Lay out all the pieces and make wholistic decisions.” She smiled at her friend, and Julia returned the gesture.

“It might slow down once you meet his son,” Alice said. “That’s a big step for Liam, too, and I doubt you’ll be like me and Kelli and get married on a whim.” She glanced across the table to Kelli, who nodded soberly.

“Maybe,” Julia said. “I guess we’ll see.” She looked over to Maddy. “You’re last.”

“Kristen is last,” Alice said loudly, and all eyes went back to her. Her lunch was completely gone, as she hadn’t said more than a couple of congratulations at this meal.

Her dark eyes burned in a way Robin hadn’t seen in a while, and she looked to Alice to judge her reaction. Alice simply gazed steadily back at Kristen.

“All right.” Maddy cleared her throat. “The Glass Dolphin reopened on Monday, and I had to have Ben stay for the service, but I worked all day yesterday without him, so I’m going to count that as a win.” She smiled around the table. “My trip to Montreal was a big success. He was right, and his family really seemed to like me.” She leaned forward and looked at Robin. “And Robin and I are meeting today to go over some wedding things.”

She nodded, her smile finally feeling natural as it settled on her face.

“You were scared to go back to The Glass Dolphin?” Kelli asked.

“I…I watched him throw those buckets through the glass.” Maddy swallowed. “We have online security cameras I can see from anywhere. He seemed so…unhinged.”

“He wasn’t unhinged,” AJ argued. “He had a point to make.”

“The point you don’t like, you mean?” Alice asked. “The point that he doesn’t want tourism to expand here in the cove?” She folded her arms, but AJ didn’t back down from Alice. She never had.

“I didn’t say I agreed with his point.”

“Vandalism is not a good way to make a point,” El said quietly. “It’s illegal.”

“But it’s got people talking now,” AJ said.

Robin wasn’t sure where to weigh in, so she said nothing. That wasn’t usually like her—she had opinions and she vocalized them. But this idea that Five Island Cove was growing too big, too fast… She hadn’t had much time to really think about it. She and Duke hadn’t talked about it.

He was a fisherman. If there weren’t people to eat fish, he didn’t have a sustainable business.

There’s always Alaska, she thought, and that only soured her stomach. She couldn’t imagine moving from the only home she’d ever known, from these women here at this luncheon.

“All right,” Kristen said loudly. “All right, enough. We’re not going to bicker over the expansion of Five Island Cove.” Her voice got them all to quiet, the way it had when they were teens and arguing over something.

She twisted and retrieved a manila folder from the bookcase behind her. It didn’t hold anything else, and Robin hadn’t seen that folder there either. Kristen’s hands shook as she flipped open the folder.

“My news is simple, yet complex. I think—I know—it’ll impact some of you here. Maybe some of you in ways you don’t even know or I couldn’t anticipate.”

She took a single sheet of paper out of the folder. It was white, not aged, but Robin couldn’t see it from her position at the table. “My grandmother sold the lighthouse in Nineteen-Fifty,” she said smoothly, though her voice was half the volume as previously. “She simply couldn’t afford to keep it. I didn’t know this. My parents didn’t know it. I grew up here at the lighthouse, and I thought it belonged to my family.”

She glanced at Jean, who wore a nervous, wide-eyed look. “This is the full article of that paper we saw on display in City Hall. It says Rose sold the lighthouse to the Cove Fisherman’s Coalition.”

Robin’s heartbeat thumped against her neck. Duke was the current Vice President of the CFC. This couldn’t be true.

“They had an agreement with Rose to continue to run the lighthouse,” she said. “They paid her, not the city.” She took out a couple more pieces of paper. “There was a fire at the downtown city office buildings in Nineteen-Sixty-Two. All of the records burned, and from that date forward, the city of Five Island Cove started paying my grandmother, then my father, then us, and now Reuben, to run the lighthouse.”

“What does this mean?” AJ asked as she peered at one of the papers.

“I’ve asked Alice to sort through all of the documents I could find,” Kristen said. “I found some pay stubs from the CFC. Then some from the city. I couldn’t find the title to the lighthouse, and I couldn’t find any bill of sale for it…” Her gaze switched to Maddy. “Or for the land where The Glass Dolphin sits. You see, that was a plot of land that my grandparents owned. They had a small house there before they bought the lighthouse. They kept it, because my grandfather got called to war before they could do anything with it, and…well, I have no idea when or if my grandmother ever sold it.”

“A fire?” El asked, looking at her phone. “Oh, the big one in 1962. Yes.” She looked up. “What does this mean?”

Kristen had been passing out the papers, and one reached Robin. She looked at it, and it was the same newspaper as the one she’d seen on display in City Hall. She’d gone with Duke, and it honestly hadn’t meant much to her.

The only reason she’d known there was anything afoot was because of Alice’s and El’s texts to her privately about what had happened with Kristen.

“Alice?” Kristen prompted.

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